Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Jesus' Will Found!

Over on the Huffington Post, Mark Miller has the scoop of the century, something that dwarfs other recent claims to have found Jesus' bonebox, the nails used to crucify him and the earliest Christian iconography. We now have the Jesus' final will and testament:

An archaeologist has scored the discovery of a lifetime, unearthing a tattered, faded parchment that experts have certified as the last will and testament of Jesus Christ.

It looks like New Testament scholars will be eating humble pie for some years to come. Not only does it hint at a romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, but also it suggests that the author of the first Gospel was personally known to Jesus and, moreover, that he was not the tax-collector by the same name but a "school buddy" from Nazareth.

Still more intriguing is the mention of Luke in the document. Does this mean that the author of the third Gospel was engaging in subterfuge when he suggested that he was not one of the eye-witnesses (Luke 1.1-4)? Perhaps this will turn out to be a previously unsuspected case of protective anonymity.

Although I am going to have to reassess some of my own work on the Gospels in the light of the new discovery, one element confirms something that I have been saying for a while, that we need to take seriously the Missing Pieces in Historical Jesus research. The mention of Vinnie, the village beggar, and Janet, the masseuse, illustrates that there are indeed figures involved in Jesus' life about whom we know nothing.

On the other hand, perhaps I could just join the "few naysayers" already mentioned in the article. I'm sure if I look hard enough, and sit around at the computer blogging all day, I might be able to find something to nit-pic about.